If you are using Google and Yahoo alerts, good for you. If you aren’t, then you need to learn to use these tools as part of your marketing tool box.

Why would I want to use this tool?

First and foremost you should know what people are saying about your company– so you company name, nickname, and earlier company names should all be keywords in your alerts.

Examples:

“fedex”, “federal express”

“ford”, “ford motor company”, “ford motor”

Second – you may want to keep a tab on your competitors and what “is being said” about them.

Examples:

“ups”, “united parcel service”

“gm”, “general motors”

Third – if you want to know the bad things people might be saying you should also know what I call the “snarky” keywords. Usually you can find these types of keywords by going to some blog sites such as http://www.wordpress.com or http://www.blogger.com and type in the correct word and you might find the snaky keyword(s). One of these types keywords I have seen quite often on the blogs is the term “government motors” for “general motors”.

Fourth – I use it to track what “is being said” about my clients. It is a good opportunity to keep up with their news and when something great happens – I send them a note of congratulations (handwritten in a card – yep using snail mail – bigger impact).

Fifth – I use the alerts to track industry trends.Decide which keywords you want for your industry and create an alert for those trends.